Yesterday, aboard the bus shuttling tourists from the parking lot to the Mariposa Grove, a big red LED display display the date and time. I’d barely looked at a calendar since our trip began. The date startled me. It struck me, all at once, that our trip was half over.

That thought has sat heavy with me since then. Twenty-four days of unhurried time, between jobs, with no major commitments hanging over me, is an incredible gift. When we set out 11 days ago, time felt infinite. My ambitions are always sweeping, and I had a long list of achievements I hoped to realize: daily blogging, finishing a draft of my book, leading my first multi-pitch climbs, climbing some classics in Yosemite Valley, and then climbing the three most famous peaks in Tuolumne Meadows. All of that, of course, would be in addition to lazy afternoons reading in alpine meadows or by quiet rivers, spending time with Hannah, and showing Sam around Yosemite Valley.

Now, for the first time, I feel the rush of time. I’m on a clock. With just 11 days before driving back to Idaho to drop off the van and catch our flight, I need to make choices, and those choices entail tradeoffs. I cannot do everything. I cannot be careless or wasteful with the rushing hours. Even here, on a timeful vacation, Hannah and I must make choices about the life we want, the way we want to be in the world.

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Early in our fledgling relationship, Hannah and I read Irvin Yalom’s Existential Psychology, a doorstop book and foundational text from an earlier era. Every morning we met at Prevail Coffee to discuss Yalom’s exploration of four existential dilemmas all human beings face: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglesness. The usual light fare for an early dating relationship.

Yalom believed that “death anxiety” lay at the heart of human experience. He writes, “Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.” In his book, Yalom traces this anxiety through every stage of human development, from infancy to old age.

At first, I was skeptical about the grip of death anxiety on my life. I don’t want to die anytime soon, and the risk weighs heavily on me every time I rock climb, but I also don’t have the suffocating fear of death that many people seem to. Perhaps that is one of climbing’s unusual gifts: it keeps an awareness of mortality front and center, in the purifying light, instead of leaving it to skulk in the shadows.

But as the book went on, Yalom made his case that death anxiety isn’t always explicit. Our deepest fear is not necessarily of dying, but of finitude, and this fear manifests in ways that seemingly have little to do with death. Ambition is one manifestation that resonates deeply. I feel an unquenchable thirst to learn, create, grow, achieve. I want my life to count for something, and I can’t help but measure its worth by tallying the things I’ve done and made.

My midlife passage, which I described in Eating Glass, included a painful reckoning with this deeply-rooted impulse. When I don’t achieve, who am I? When all becomes still, what is my worth? In what way has my fierce ambition blinded me to other sources of goodness, beauty, and worth in my life? I emerged from that self-confrontation a little bit wiser, more settled in spirit, and more attuned to the centrality of relationships and simple pleasures, but I still grapple daily with ambition’s role in my life. A life of desperate grasping after achievement leads to misery; on the other hand, healthy ambition plays a constructive role in fueling personal growth and our contributions to the world.

Now, in the heart of this vacation, I’m grappling with my finitude. My inability to do and become everything that I once hoped.

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The day starts out rough. We are camped at an RV park outside in Fresno. The evening heat was so severe that we couldn’t cool the van below 80, and the stove malfunctioned because of a perceived temperature error. We only slept an hour or two in the stifling heat.

We wake at 5am, drive Sam to the airport, then drive straight back to the RV park to sleep a couple more hours.

Once we are up for good, we drive to an Urgent Care clinic. We have survived a week of rigorous rock climbing and hiking without serious injury, but a minor scrape on Hannah’s finger—obtained while fishing cams out of cracks—has become infected. Half her finger is swollen white and pink. Fortunately, the doctor sees her quickly and prescribes antibiotics.

Our itinerary up to this point was well-established, governed by Sam’s flights and our days allocated to Yosemite. Now that Sam has departed, Hannah and I are on our own. We can go anywhere.

This leads to the most difficult decision of our trip: leaving Yosemite Valley behind. Before our trip, I had imagined wandering into Camp 4, the legendary focal point of Yosemite’s climbing scene, and finding experienced partners who could lead us up some of Yosemite’s classic climbs. I hopefully packed an extra-long rope, ascenders, ladder aiders, and other gear I’d never needed before. With imagination, determination, and the right mentor, we could make a leap forward in our climbing ability, tackling epic climbs I never would have dared to think possible.

It’s hard, letting that vision go, but we have to make choices. The crowds, traffic, and heat in Yosemite have been getting to us, and we’ve missed peak climbing season. But we both loved Truckee: the cool clean air, the milder temperatures, our cozy coffee shop mornings, the climbing at Donner Summit that is right at the edge of our growing abilities. Until this morning we had never considered going back—there were so many new places I wanted to explore—but Hannah and I agree it’s the right move.

This is one of life’s many tradeoffs: exploring widely, or settling deep into a place, paying ever-closer attention to its offerings, and internalizing its rhythms.

This decision also involves an important tradeoff related to our climbing. My vision for Yosemite entailed following on routes: finding an experienced partner to guide us up climbs that exceeded our own abilities. There is nothing wrong with this; I’ve climbed with more experienced partners before, taken classes, and had wonderful experience following guides up the Grand Teton and Looking Glass. However, returning to Truckee will demand something harder: I will lead the climbs, which means operating at the fringe of my comfort zone, pushing myself in challenging new situations, and gaining the skills and confidence to lead progressively harder climbs. The climbs won’t be as epic as those in Yosemite, but I will really, truly be learning.

This is the long, slow, disciplined path to mastery. When we return to Yosemite someday, it will be with real skills.

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We spend the rest of the day driving. A major construction project has begun on I-80, and we hit four major slowdowns. We have no choice but to take it in stride.

Returning to Truckee feels like coming home. I’ve stored coordinates for our favorite campsites, so dispersed camping has become easy and routine. Our favorite meadow is occupied, but we settle in a secluded dirt turnout not much farther.

We are back. We cook dinner, prep the van for the coming night, and drift peacefully to sleep beneath familiar trees and distant mountain peaks.